Strange Science

The essays in Strange Science examine marginal, fringe, and unconventional forms of scientific inquiry and their cultural representations in the Victorian period. The volume treats fields now often labeled pseudoscientific, such as mesmerism and psychical research, alongside branches like physics and botany that were once associated with unorthodox methods of inquiry. Whether later incorporated into mainstream scientific thought or categorized by twenty-first century historians as pseudo- or anti-scientific, these sciences generated conversation, enthusiasm, and controversy within Victorian society. The collection places a range of sciences in conversation and shows how scientific discourse of the period was frequently radically speculative.